Q. What was the inspiration for your story?
A. During Covid, my wife and I flew to Virginia to see my wife’s parents. Because we didn’t want to risk getting them sick, we spent a few days in Williamsburg to ensure we were COVID-free before we visited them. There, we did a tour of Jamestown led by a Native American. It was interesting
to get his perspective on the British colonization of America, but even more interesting was what came after the Revolutionary War. Britain had been using the colonies as a sort of pressure relief valve because, with the Industrial Revolution in full swing, they were effectively running out of room for people to live. They had reached the carrying capacity of the land using their current technology. They turned to Australia and began sending their convicts there. Regular colonists followed. That afternoon, I went running and listened to Gadigal Land by Midnight Oil. (I’m a big Midnight Oil fan and am musically stuck in the 90’s.) The Aboriginal name for the area around Sydney is Gadigal Land. I started thinking: what if history were to repeat itself but on a global or even extra-planetary scale?
Q. How do you do research for your books?
A. I use the internet, travel, and flight manuals. It’s amazing what you can learn online, but nothing beats physically visiting a location. I grew up in Texas, toured an ice cave in Iceland, and currently live in Hawaii.
Q. Your story is set in Iceland, Galveston, and the Big Island of Hawaii. Why did you choose these as the settings for your book?
A. These three places are all islands, which is central to the plot of the book. In a sense, they are also places on the fringes. Iceland is separate and distinct from Europe. Galveston is separate from Texas (although it’s practically an extension of Houston.) Hawaii is separate and distinct from the other 48 contiguous states.
Q. What is the most difficult part about writing for you?
A. Editing. If you make a minor tweak on page 100, the change can propagate both forward and backward, and these changes can be hard to catch.
Q. When you’re writing an emotionally draining (or sexy, or sad, etc) scene, how do you get in the mood?
A. For me the best way is either running or swimming while listening to music. (See above.) I think the endorphins must fire up the normally dormant creative chunk of my brain.
Q. What is the significance of the title?
A. Several years ago, my wife and I were watching the TV series The Man in the High Castle, an alternative history where the Nazis won World War Two. The reason the Nazis gave for their desire to roll over most of Europe (and half of North America) was lebensraum, which roughly translates into English as room to live. History seems to repeat itself with waves of conquerors overtaking the conquered, usually with the goal of obtaining more lebensraum.
Elements of newspeak inspired by Orwell’s 1984 run throughout the book (Cancelled vs canceled, Freedom Vault, Social Score, Peace Squad, Safety, etc.) and are prevalent amongst the alien Society and increasingly in human society as we evolve into their Society. These dystopian elements are an extrapolation of social trends today. The Chinese Communist Party instigated social scores for its citizens several years ago, and the Biden administration attempted to form a Disinformation Board but failed.
Q. What is the key theme and/or message in the book?
A. There are multiple themes threaded throughout the book. One theme, as mentioned above, is looking at colonization from the standpoint of the whole of humanity itself being colonized. Other themes are the mob vs. the individual (both alien and human), equality vs equity, racial identity vs individual identity, disinformation and media manipulation, and the various historical attempts by governments to social engineer society into the Great Society.
Q. What is the most surprising thing you discovered while writing your book?
A. Central Pacific Flight 855 was initially a Boeing 787, which would be an appropriate size for the route from Sydney to Honolulu; however, after talking with a buddy who is a Boeing test pilot, I decided that a 777 would have a better chance of surviving a massive EMP because it is older technology. Sometimes, older can be better, and old technology plays a central role in the book’s plot.
It was also surprising to me how difficult it is to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull. Try it☺
Q. Do you have a favorite character that you have written? If so, who? And what makes them so special?
A. I would have to say Kolbrún. There’s something strangely endearing about a tough, take-no-prisoners, eighty-year-old lady trudging through the snow of a pasture in Iceland with a rifle slung over her shoulder and a Crockpot in her hands.
Excerpt from No Room to Live:
Every display went black. Although the full moon provided enough light to see inside the flight deck, every light and illuminated switch was now dark. The sound of the airstream rushing past the fuselage diminished, and the low clouds on the horizon began rising in the windshield.
Kup pushed the throttles to the forward stop as he pulled back on the yoke.
“Crap!” Lydia said. “Now we’ve lost all electricity? Descend, Kup. We don’t want to get too slow.”
“Too slow? How am I supposed to know what ‘too slow’ is?”
“Wing it, Kup.” Lydia fumbled with her iPad, which contained all the flight manuals. It remained dark.
Loud pounding noises came from the other side of the flight deck door.
“My iPad’s broken, Kup. Try yours.”
Kup put his left hand on the yoke and reached over to his iPad with his right hand. Despite multiple attempts to unlock it, its screen remained black. “Same for mine.”
The pounding on the door intensified.
“I’ve still got nothing from the throttles,” Kup said.
The aircraft jolted upward and to the left.
“We’re climbing? Lydia, we’re climbing!”
The tumbling gray object no longer moved in the windshield.
“How can we be climbing with dead engines?” Kup said as he pushed the yoke forward. “And . . . are we vibrating?”
Lydia stared at the object in the windshield. “Turn away from it, Kup. Turn away from it!”
“I’m trying. The controls aren’t responding.” Kup turned the yoke to the left and the right. He pushed it forward. He pulled it toward him.
The object grew larger in the windshield.
Between poundings on the door, a female voice screamed something about the lights. It sounded like Manu Keller, the lead flight attendant.
The triangular object filled half the windshield.
Lydia turned her head to face the flight deck door. “Brace command, Manu. Brace command, now!”
